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Musiewild's blog

~ An occasional blog, mainly photos

Musiewild's blog

Tag Archives: wild garlic

Milton Lodge Gardens

13 Friday May 2022

Posted by Musiewild in Countryside views, History, Industrial archeology, Photography

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

camass, Glastonbury Tor, Mendip Hills, Milton Lodge Gardens, National Gardens Scheme, ransoms, red kite, triple entry pond, Wells, Wells Cathedral, wild garlic, Wrington

After a pleasant ‘first Friday’ walk with my friend Zoe, starting and finishing in the village of Wrington in North Somerset,

on Sunday I visited Milton Lodge Gardens, just north of England’s smallest city, Wells. It is open to the public three times a week, but this time it was in aid of the National Gardens Scheme.

The weather was lovely, and the outing was popular, so I had to use the overflow car park, from which this was the view, with Glastonbury Tor, whence I had come, a pimple on the horizon.

Right near where I had parked, was this curious depression, explained in a note nearby to be a ‘triple entry pond’, unique to Mendip, and likely to date from the late 1700s. It was constructed to capture naturally draining water from the Mendip Hills, and used to channel water underground to nearly stock fields.

According to Wikipedia, “Milton Lodge was built by Aaron Foster in 1790 and descended in his family until it passed, by marriage, into the ownership of the Tudway family in the mid 19th century. The Tudways had lived nearby at a house, known as The Cedars, which was built in the 1760s by Thomas Paty, and had bought up much of the local land. In 1909 Charles Tudway moved the main family residence to Milton Lodge, with The Cedars being used during World War I as a military hospital and later by Wells Theological College and Wells Cathedral School” [which it still is].

The same source goes on to say that, “The garden was laid out in 1903 by Capt Croker Ives Partridge of the Alfred Parsons garden design company for Charles Tudway. It consists of a series of terraces planted with mixed borders including a collection of roses and climbing plants. The terraces include Yew hedges, ponds and fountains.[4] The traditional English vegetation is supplemented with Mediterranean plants which are able to flourish due to the microclimate of the site. The upper terrace includes four canons from the Napoleonic Wars are on display.”

Wells Cathedral can just about be made out middle left.

My Candide app suggested that this, of which there were several examples in the Gardens, might be a Flowering maple, (which is not a maple at all but an abutilon), but I’m not quite convinced, while failing to find a better suggestion…

The Gardens go just beyond the big hedge.

As I had walked from the car park, the way was lined with wild garlic, ransoms. I did not take a photo, but need not have worried about there being no further opportunity.

I was tempted up this tiny path to my right, (the terraces being to my left),

and was rewarded with this.

I returned to the main path, went down a few shallow steps, and found a few more ransoms.

Into parkland.

A clearer view of Wells Cathedral

As I said, the Gardens go down to just beyond the big hedge.

At the end of this path was a large area of wildflowers.

My app identified this as Camass, of which I am more confident

On the edge of the wildflower area was this knobbly tree, which I have failed totally to identify,

even given the clue of its leaf shape.

Just by the tree was a bench, one of several in the Gardens. I partook for a minute or two, surveying the lowest terrace

As I stood up, something made my eyes turn skywards, and I was thrilled to see this red kite. It is now some 30+ years since they were reintroduced into the Chiltern Hills. I had seen some in Scotland in 2011 following their reintroduction there, and I knew that they had spread westwards from Oxfordshire into Somerset. But this was the first I had seen here.

I walked through the tea area to explore the middle terrace.

Turning round I spotted a bench hidden on the other side where I thought it would be nice to take a cup of tea.

It’s hidden!
‘Olivia Rose Austin‘

Tea and cake duly bought, I found ‘my’ bench still unoccupied, with this to my left,

this to my right,

and this ahead.

As I returned to my car, it was all too tempting to take an arty photo of the Cathedral, where I shall be singing at a memorial service in a week’s time.

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A Spring walk …

25 Thursday Apr 2019

Posted by Musiewild in Countryside views, Photography, Plants, Wildlife

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

Alexander Hood, Brown-banded carder bee, Butleigh, Buzzard, comfrey, Compton Dundon, Cow parsley, cowslip, Dandelion, Dundon Hill, English bluebell, Glastonbury, Glastonbury Tor, Greater Hawks-beard, Herb Robert, Hood Monument, Pendulous sedge, Polden Way, primrose, ransom, Samuel Hood, speckled wood, vetch, wild garlic, Wych elm

… in the Compton Dundon, Somerset, area.

A friendly dog – which didn’t bark! The Hood Monument right.
I was going Butleigh-wards. And when I turned round from taking this photo…
… I was concerned I might have delightful but unwanted company, but he returned home.
Well, I like dandelions.
Cow parsley
A dandeliony thing, Greater hawks-beard I think.
Comfrey
Hart’s tongue fern (TH)
Pendulous sedge. It’s very pretty, but it’s wicked in my garden, seeding itself everywhere. And it seemed, sadly, to have done so on this walk. There was far too much of it, everywhere, in my view.
Nearing the (physical) high point of the afternoon.
I was tempted to go off at a tangent but didn’t.
The Hood Monument
The top of the monument reflects the activity of Samuel Hood, 1724-1816, local boy made good. His younger brother, Alexander, was also an Admiral, but I know of no monument to him.
In memory of
Sir Samuel Hood
Knight of the most Honourable Order of the Bath
and nominated Grand Cross thereof
Knight of St Ferdinand and of Merit
Knight Grand Cross of the Sword
Vice Admiral of the White
and Commander-in-Chief of His Majesty’s Fleet
in the East Indies
View from the plinth, looking north. If it weren’t for the trees on the left, I could have seen my house. (It would be possible to see my house if one were allowed to climb to the top of the Monument, as I can see the latter from my front window.)
Wych elm, I think
Continuing downwards, I came to my kind of stile
Glastonbury and its Tor.

I had a choice at this point, to walk along a very busy road, or to enter a wood, where three years ago I had found carpets of bluebells.

There were no bluebells where I expected to find them. Either my memory was faulty or they had been stripped out. Or they had been suppressed by the acres of sedge that seemed to be everywhere. After a long while I did find some, but not in the swathes that I expected.

But happily they were English bluebells, with not a Spanish bluebell in sight, then or for the rest of my walk.

The wood felt magical and I found myself envious of the owner.

Impossible not to be aware of a great low-flying bird across my path. It settled in a tree to my left.

A buzzard!
Just look at that beak and those talons!

Then it flew off, to a much higher and much further tree, not yet covered in foliage.

Only on examining and enlarging my photos was I able to see that the tree, a cherry of some sort presumably, had blossom, a nice contrast with the fierceness of the bird.
My Ordnance Survey map indicated that this was, (in Gothic lettering so it was ancient), the ‘New Ditch’.
This inadvertent sculpture pleased me.
There are still many primroses around.
The steps are part of the Polden Way, quite recently established, but mine was the bridleway to the right
It looked easy and smooth
From the path I could just see an inaccessible mass of white flowers in green. As I suspected, they did turn out, thanks to the zoom on the camera, to be wild garlic, aka ransoms.
What promised to be a smooth and easy path was not always. Those ruts are 18 ins (45 cm) deep!
I was not tempted to swing from this beautiful tree, but zoomed in on a yellow sheen on the field.
It was a sheen of cowslips.
Herb Robert
The trouble with butterflies is that they flit about so. This was the best I could do to catch the Speckled wood.
All afternoon there had just been the odd sample of vetch, but towards the end I came across a bankful of the plant, with a co-operative bee.
And, as I only noticed once home, an ant as well. (Brown-banded Carder bee)
Nearly back to my car, this is the back of the local hostelry, with Dundon Hill behind. It has a Gothic lettering fort on it.

A very pleasant afternoon. And other than on the first road, I didn’t meet a soul.

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